Indo-US nexus fallout

GIVEN the US-India nuclear deal, with its latent military component, it was assumed that the Pakistan-China nuclear agreement, which is purely for civil nuclear power development and, as previously, subject to IAEA safeguards would not cause a hysterical reaction in the US. However, according to The Washington Post, the US has now decided to object to this deal for two civilian nuclear reactors. Citing US officials, the paper reported that the Sino-Pakistan deal would be discussed next week in New Zealand at the meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). This is hypocrisy of the worst kind given how the US has itself signed a major nuclear deal with India - like Pakistan, a non signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In fact, after contravening its own NPT obligations, the US pushed the IAEA into conceding to a special country-specific safeguards agreement for Indias civilian reactors (those India chooses to identify for these safeguards). It was on this point that Pakistan made a diplomatic gaffe by backtracking on its principled opposition to these safeguards in the IAEA and the story of how the pressure was applied through Washington was made public at the time. After getting India through the IAEA, the US then lobbied for country-specific concessions for India from the NSG despite Pakistan asking for criteria-based exceptions. As a result of the NSGs concession to India, lucrative nuclear contracts are being signed by India and countries like France, Russia and the UK So when experts cite the violation of international guidelines by the Pakistan-China civilian nuclear deal because of the NPT, there is little credibility to this posturing now after the IAEA and NSG concessions to India. The only objective would be to target Muslim Pakistan once again on the nuclear issue. Clearly, the Indian propaganda is working on the US, which initially had stated it had no objections to the Pak-China nuclear deal. For Pakistan it is imperative to defeat this new US move against its nuclear energy programme. One hopes that the Chinese will take a firm position on this count. However, Pakistan also needs to devise its own strategy which should include some linkage between provision of access to US and NATO through Pakistan and the US supporting Pakistan in the NSG on its civilian nuclear deal with China - although ideally there is no reason for it to come up before the NSG for scrutiny in the first place. And this should be Pakistans demand. The Indian hand in all this is part of the expansive propaganda against Pakistan that it is conducting on multiple fronts - from Afghanistan to the nuclear issue. When the Indian leadership says it has no common vision or peace framework with Pakistan it is being truthful. After all, India has no peace vision at all that foresees a strong and independent Pakistan.